Irish Myth: Ulster Cycle Trivia Quiz

Answer: She had been forced to run a footrace when nine months pregnant.

Macha's origins are {mysterious;} she showed up one day out of nowhere and began acting as wife to rich widower Crunniuc. Despite Macha's warning to Crunniuc not to say anything stupid, one day at a fair he boasted that Macha was swifter of foot than the king's horses.

She was heavily pregnant at the time. On pain of Crunniuc's death, she was forced to put his boast to the test. She begged to be permitted to give birth to her twins first, but her pleas were ignored. She won the race, delivered the twins *and* her curse, on the finish line.

As her children were born, she screamed that every man who heard her, and their descendants for nine generations more, would suffer the same birth pangs for five days and four nights in the time of their greatest difficulty -- this was the 'Pangs of Ulster.' The place where this happened was known ever after as Emain Macha -- the Twins of Macha.

Answer: Lugh

Setanta, or Cuchulainn, is famous above all for his ferocity in {battle;} it is appropriate, then, that his father should have been Lugh, he who definitively defeated the Fomorians in the Second Battle of Moytura. The surviving account of how he impregnated Deichtine is confused, involving an intervening miscarriage or stillborn child before the union with the god bore ultimate fruit, and is probably a patchwork of several conflicting older versions of the myth. Lugh either entered Deichtine's drink as a mayfly and impregnated her from within after being consumed, or later, coming to her in the form of a bird.

In either event, Lugh appeared to Deichtine in a dream, told her he was the father of the son she would bear, instructed her to name the boy Setanta ('Knowledgeable of Roads and Ways'), and bade her give the boy two foals which would be born simultaneously with Setanta, namely the Roan of Macha and Black Sainglen.

Answer: The Hound of Culann

Culann the Smith had a huge guard-dog which surprised the boy Setanta. Setanta killed it with his bare hands. To repay Cullan for the loss of his magnificent and legendary dog, Setanta swore to raise a pup from the same pack -- and until it was raised, to guard Cullan's property himself. Setanta actually expressed some displeasure at his new cognomen, but on the insistence of the Druid, Cathbad, it stuck.

Answer: Hunt and kill the evil beasts of Cerna.

He was also required to perform the salmon-leap while carrying twice his own weight in gold. It did not take him long to perform all of these feats. (This is reminiscent of a number of legendary tales, to me most strongly of the (probably apocryphal) story told of Harald Fagrhagr (Fiarhair) and Gyda Eiriksdottir. Harald was one of hundreds of petty kings of Norway.

He attempted to woo Gyda, but was told his suit would not be successful until he became king over all of Norway. Harald vowed neither to cut nor comb his hair until he succeeded in the task, which eventually he did around 885 AD. Harald's campaign to conquer or subjugate all of Norway, incidentally, is often cited as the catalyst for the Icelandic heroic age, as powerful men unwilling to bend the knee to a high king brought their literate, well-trained households out from Norway to Iceland in droves.

Indeed, Iceland not only had more than its fair share of arrogant, untameable warriors, it also had a more literate population than anywhere else in early medieval Europe. (Not to hunt the evil beasts of Cerna was one of nine geasa placed upon High King Conary Mor in the earlier, Mythological Cycle of Irish legend.)

Answer: To befriend any horse, dog or bear.

Once Uathac told him how to get Scathac to agree to train him, she taught him: 'the apple feat - juggling nine apples with never more than one in his {palm;} the {thunder-feat;} the feats of the sword-edge and sloped {shield;} the feats of the javelin and the {rope;} the {body-feat;} the feat of Cat and the heroic {salmon-leap;} the pole-throw and the leap over a poisoned {stroke;} the noble chariot-fighter's {crouch;} the gae {bolga;} the spurt of {speed;} the feat of the chariot-wheel thrown on high and the feat of the {shield-rim;} the breath-feat, with gold apples blown up into the {air;} the snapping mouth and the hero's {scream;} the stroke of {precision;} the stunning-shot and the {cry-stroke;} stepping on a lance in flight and straightening erect on it's {point;} the sickle {chariot;} and the trussing of a warrior on the points of spears.' Cuchulainn had no especial affinity with animals, but he sure could do a lot of combat-related feats.

Answer: Aife

Cuchulainn's first son was borne by Aife, Scathac's neighbor, rival and enemy. Aife and Cuchulainn were engaged in single combat on the rope of feats when Aife cut off Cuchulainn's sword at the hilt. He shouted, 'Look behind you! All your men are dead!' and when she turned to look, he grabbed her by the breasts, dragged her off and put a knife to her throat.

He agreed to spare her on three conditions: that she give hostages to {Scathac;} that she sleep with {him;} and that she bear him a son. She agreed to the conditions. Cuchulainn told her to name the boy Connla, and to send him to his father in seven years (when Cuchulainn himself would be 14).

When he showed up seven years later, he was beating his father in combat every which way until Cuchulainn -- although he knew the boy's identity -- 'played foul' and used the gae bolga (his quasi-mystical under-water thirty-barbed spear) to rip his own son's guts out. An odd episode, difficult to come to terms with.

Answer: Submits passively to a demonic giant who wants to cut off his head.

Niceties of honor being of paramount importance among warrior peoples like the Ulstermen, it is critical that the champion's identity be determined before the climax of the feast, for it is he who will receive the 'champion's portion.' Conall of the Victories, Loeghaire the Triumphant and Cuchulainn are the contenders. Bricriu, an inveterate spreader of strife, has set it up that there will be bloodshed among the three heroes.

Indeed, he makes matters worse by getting the heroes' wives drunk and then telling them that the first to enter the hall will be the first lady of Ulster.

They hike up their skirts in their haste to enter, and make a spectacle of themselves. When the doors are barred against them, Conall and Loeghaire begin tearing down the walls, but Cuchulainn lifts the house, lets his wife Emer and her entourage enter, and then drops it again.

But what finally settles the matter is the episode of the weird giant, who offers to let any man cut off his head, so long as the giant could then return the favor. Conall and Loeghaire refuse. Cuchulainn agrees, and decapitates the giant, who walks off carrying his own severed head, only to return with his head and an axe. Cuchulainn quietly lays his head upon the block, but the giant turns out to be the legendary sorcerer-hero Cu Roi Mac Dairi, who declares Cuchulainn champion.

Answer: Rampageous and beautiful Derdriu ni Feidlimid.

Derdriu (or Deirdre, meaning 'rampageous', and so called after the audible shout she delivered while in her mother's womb) was predicted (by Cathbad the Druid) to be the cause of the downfall of the men of the Red Branch, on account of her great beauty.

It was therefore requested that she be killed at birth, but Conchobar wanted her for himself, so had her reared in secret. However, at about the age of fourteen, she met the handsome Naoise, and eloped with him. Conchobar pursued but could not catch her, and ultimately lured her, Naoise, and Naoise's brothers back to Ulster, where he treacherously murdered the men and captured the woman. Conchobar's treachery caused a split in the house of the Red Branch, with many of its warriors leaving Ulster and joining Medb and Ailill of Connaught. Derdriu later hurled herself from Conchobar's chariot and died, preferring death to his treatment of her.

Answer: A quarrel between two semi-divine swineherds.

The Sidhe swineherds Rucht (grunt) and Friuch (bristle) were tricked into hating one another. Shapeshifters, they fought for two years as birds of prey, two as water animals, two as stags, two as warriors, two as phantoms, two as dragons and two as maggots.

As maggots, each was swallowed by a cow -- one in Cooley, and one in Connaught. One bovine gestation-period later, the two bulls Dub (of Cooley in Ulster) and Finnbennach (of Ai Plain in Connaught) were born, making their owners rich men.

Answer: Lovers' spat between the King and Queen of Connaught.

Queen Medb teased King Ailill that he was a kept man, supported by her wealth. He protested, and when they jotted up their respective riches, he was the wealthier -- by virtue of his ownership of the fabulous bull Finnbennach. For Medb to be richer, she needed to acquire Dub.

She attempted to borrow the beast, and sent her men to negotiate for its loan. Daire was willing, but when his men overheard Medb's men boasting that had Daire refused they would have taken Dub by force, he sent them back kineless.

Answer: He was consummating an adulterous tryst.

Cuchulainn's mortal father (or foster-father) Sualtaim told him to expect the men of Connaught, but Cuchulainn had previously sworn to tryst with the maid of King Conchobar's daughter. Rather than permit it to be said that men's promises are false while women's promises are true, Cuchulainn kept his word and allowed the host to enter.

However, he delayed their entry and forced them to take a long way round by planting a monstrous and terrifying ogham in their path.

Answer: 2

At their first encounter, Nathcrantail cast nine spears at Cuchulainn in quick succession. Cuchulainn leapt from one to the other as Nathcrantail cast them, and on the ninth was carried past some birds. Distracted, he hunted them and failed to slay his foe. Nathcrantail went back and told Medb that the beardless Cuchulainn had fled from him. Cuchulainn's explanation was that he killed no unarmed person (or tried not to, at any rate), and that Nathcrantail had carried no arms but only 'spits of wood.' The next day Cuchulainn was not so easily distracted: he leapt onto Nathcrantail's shield boss, from which perch he cut off the man's head. Before Nathcrantail's body fell, Cuchulainn cut it in half from neck to crotch.

Answer: A small army of 150 pre-adolescent boys.

The boy-troop of thrice fifty sons of kings defended Ulster while Cuchulainn {slept;} they were all killed, but not before they had slain 450 men of Connaught.

Answer: His own foster-brother Ferdiad

Ferdiad had had all the same combat instructresses as had Cuchulainn, and also benefited from a horny skin which was as hard as armor. However, Cuchulainn's supernatural allies matched Ferdiad's skin, and in addition Cuchulainn knew the secret of the gae bolga. Aside from that one advantage, the two were equally matched, and they fought for four days until Cuchulainn finally prevailed, by use of his thirty-barbed spear. (1. Medb violated the single-combat agreement by sending 'six men at one and the same time to attack Cuchulain, to wit: Traig ('Foot') and Dorn ('Fist') and Dernu ('Palm'), Col ('Sin') and Accuis ('Curse') and Eraise ('Heresy'), three druid-men and three druid-women.' However, they provided no especial challenge to defeat: 'Cuchulain attacked them, so that they fell at his hands.' 2. Larine provided no especial challenge {either;} Lugaid begged Cuchulainn to spare Larine, so the hero complied -- he merely (and quite literally) beat the sh_t out of him: 'Cuchulain ground and bruised him between his arms, he lashed him and clasped him, he squeezed him and shook him, so that he spilled all the dirt out of him, so that an unclean, filthy wrack of cloud arose in the four airts wherein he was.' 3. Scathac was not sent against Cuchulainn.)

Answer: Cut off his own head by falling on his shield-edge.

Cuchulainn sent Sualtaim to warn the hosts of Ulster, who at last had recovered from the Pangs of Macha's Curse, that the hosts of Connaught had captured the bull and were escaping with it. Sualtaim delivered the warning, and then fell off the Roan of Macha on to his own shield.

Answer: Men of Connaught routed, but their leaders spared

After the defeat of the Connaught war host, Cuchulainn came upon Medb helpless in the throes of an ill-timed and massive menstrual flow. He spared her, and gave her surviving forces safe passage out of Ulster.

Answer: Dub slays Finnbennach, then dies himself

Thus, with both bulls eliminated, Medb still managed to achieve the ultimate goal of her {cattle-raid;} namely, to win her argument with Ailill! (Without Finnbennach, Ailill was less wealthy than Medb, so she didn't need to augment her wealth by adding Dub to her possessions.)

Answer: His desire to tryst with the wife of Mananan mac Lir.

Fand, estranged wife of Mananan, took a fancy to Cuchulainn. When Sidhe women take a fancy, they express it {oddly;} in the form of game birds she and her sister lured the hero to a menhir where he fell asleep. As he slept, he dreamed that the two women beat him, after which he had a strange sickness for a year.

A stranger finally came and told the ailing Cuchulainn that he could be cured if he visited Fand and her sister in the otherworld. Cuchulainn went back to the menhir, where Fand's sister told him that if he would slay three demon kings he could enjoy Fand's favors.

After dutifully slaying the undesirable kings, Cuchulainn dwelt with Fand for a month, before returning to the world where he ran into his true wife, Emer, accompanied by fifty armed handmaidens.

The crisis was resolved when Fand returned to Mananan and Cuchulainn drank a potion of forgetfulness to banish his Sidhe lover from his memory.

Answer: Betrayal of someone dear and trusted.

Medb gathered a huge cabal of Cuchulainn's enemies, mainly relatives of the thousands of men Cuchulainn had slain. These included six wizards (children of Calatin) who exhausted the hero by causing him to battle illusions. Later, as Cuchulainn set forth for further strife against Medb's conspirators, he saw a vision of a hag -- presumably the Morrigan -- washing bloody clothes at the {ford;} the clothes were Cuchulainn's own.

This was a premonition that he was doomed to fall. Later still, the ni Calatins tricked him into eating otter flesh -- the flesh of the 'river dog' and thus the flesh of his namesake animal. Violating this taboo had the effect of paralyzing his arm. Nevertheless, exhausted, crippled and fated to die, he slew many hosts of men until he was tricked into loosing his three javelins, each of which was fated to slay a king. First, one satirist goads him into throwing one of the {javelins;} the hero casts the javelin, slaying the satirist and nine others.

The javelin is then thrown back, slaying Laeg, King of Charioteers.

Then a second satirist goads him into throwing the second {javelin;} the hero casts the javelin, slaying the satirist and nine others. The javelin is then thrown back, wounding (ultimately fatally) the Roan of Macha, King of Horses. Then a third (suicidal) satirist goads him into throwing the final {javelin;} the hero casts the javelin, slaying the satirist and nine others. The javelin is then thrown back, wounding (ultimately fatally) Cuchulainn, King of Champions. (In Irish legend, as in Icelandic saga, and in any blood-feud culture in which honor is paramount, skill at verbal mockery is a powerful force. Thus it is that 'satirists' play what might appear to a modern person to be a disproportionately important role in the Cycle.) Lewy beheads the dying hero, but the sword in Cuchulainn's dead hand falls and severs Lewy's own hand.

Answer: The excised brain of Mesgedra, King of Leinster

Conall of the Victories made Mesgedra's brains into a sling stone, but the brain-missile was stolen by Ket of Connaught, and used on Conchobar, imbedding the brain-missile in the king's forehead. Conchobar's surgeons sewed him up, but could not remove the intrusive brain. They told him to rest, but he lost his temper, and died.